Author Archives: Joshua Stein

A contractor has been fined £20,000 for “a catalogue of health and safety failings” identified at a site. Daniel Taylor Builder and Architectural Woodworker was converting a former bank into offices when it was found to have left workers at risk from falling from height and exposure to hazardous substances,…

Vinci Construction boosted its global turnover to €29.3bn (£25.9bn) in its latest financial year, new results show. The French multinational firm saw its turnover rise by 11 per cent in the year to 31 December 2022, from £26.4bn the year before. Earnings before interest and taxes at the firm were…

A new apprenticeship accreditation set up by the Institution of Fire Engineers (IFE) will focus on “quality control”, the organisation’s chief executive has said. The scheme, set up in conjunction with the Fire Service College, will involve an “end-point assessment” focusing on occupational competence and capability, designed to put fire-safety…

Members of the House of Lords have called for more urgency to remediate school buildings at risk of collapse. In December, the Department for Education (DfE) warned that the prospect of a school-building collapse was “very likely”. It raised the possibility of school buildings collapsing to “critical”. The department warned…

Tilbury Douglas has resolved all of the energy-from-waste (EfW) issues that helped push Interserve into administration. In newly released accounts for the year to 31 December 2021, the contractor said it had made “considerable progress” in 2020 and 2021 in settling historic disputes and completing all of the problem contracts…

Joshua Stein reveals the payment performance of the UK’s largest contractors – and asks whether it’s too easy for firms to manipulate the system Advertising sponsor   “If businesses or freelancers are owed a lot of money, their cashflow is affected. Unless they have a large amount of funds in…

A floor specialist that has worked with major contractors including Buckingham Group and Sir Robert McAlpine has collapsed into administration. Malin Industrial Concrete Floors Ltd, a £25.6m-turnover company specialising in flooring production, appointed Mazars as administrators this week. The Manchester-based firm had a strong profile of work producing specialised flooring,…

Balfour Beatty moved to the top of the contractors' league table for the first time in two years thanks to a £1.2bn job to build the northern road linked to the Lower Thames Crossing. The job, to build nearly 10 miles of new road, almost single-handedly drove Balfour to first…

Inflation and contract complications have slashed Ardmore’s profit by more than half, with pre-tax profit shrinking to £6.5m in the year to 30 September 2022, compared with £15.3m the year prior. In newly released accounts, Ardmore said it made a £27m provision relating to a series of unspecified contract difficulties.…

Problems on a number of “onerous” contracts have caused Alun Griffiths’ losses to more than triple. The contractor blamed “contractual challenges with increased inflation and design revisions” for its problems, which were contained in a £28.2m provision. That pushed the civils and geotechnical firm to a pre-tax loss of £38.1m…